Sucrose esters are effective solubilizers and there is an interest to use them as pharmaceutical excipients for nasal drug delivery. We have determined for the first time the non-toxic doses of laurate and myristate sucrose esters by four independent methods, and their effects on epithelial permeability using RPMI 2650 human nasal epithelial cell line. Based on real-time cell electronic sensing, MTT dye conversion and lactate dehydrogenase release methods reference surfactant Cremophor RH40 proved to be the least toxic excipient, and could be used at 5mg/mL concentration for 1h in epithelial cells without cellular damage. The non-toxic dose of Tween 80 was 1 mg/mL, while the dose of laurate and myristate sucrose esters that could be safely used on cells for 1 h was 0.1 mg/mL. Both the reference surfactants and the sucrose esters significantly enhanced the permeability of epithelial cell layers for the paracellular marker FITC-labelled 4.4 kDa dextran at 0.1 mg/mL concentration. The effects of sucrose esters on epithelial permeability were dose-dependent. These data indicate that laurate and myristate sucrose esters can be potentially used as permeability enhancers in nasal formulations to augment drug delivery to the systemic circulation.
